Many people are familiar with the widely planted ornamental crape myrtle as a result of its beautiful summer blooms in a variety of colors – white, lavender, pink and red. Crape myrtle is a non-native and has been in the U.S. since colonial times. Bees and flowers would seem to go together and one might suppose given its beautiful summer flowers that crape myrtle has been studied for its use by pollinators. Surprisingly, until now it has not been. Recently, UF/IFAS researchers have been looking at pollinators on crape myrtle. They found that there are a number of native bee species as well as honey bees that use crape myrtle flowers. Click on link to read article.

Crape myrtles are important to pollinating insects

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